skankdelvar

1977-1980, chum.

Shame to hear this. My second gig ever was at the Wellington Club about 40 years ago. Used to drink in the Polar Bear, too. Ah, well

Funnily enough, when I was living in BoA I nearly went to one of your gigs (without knowing you were in the band), then something came up and I missed it.

For me, 5 and 6 string basses are useful as a lead indicator when attending gigs. It works like this: Arrive at pub Observe 5 or 6-er on instrument stand Observe man standing apart from others, a grave expression on his face and a pork-pie hat on his head Access memory banks, recall slot: 'immobile player, excessively busy bass lines' Leave pub, go to off-license, buy pack of 8 Ace, sit on park bench

To make a fair comparison, 11% of France's €7bn is going towards supporting the mime artist community.

Indeed so. I cannot abide thread derailments of this nature.

I ceased buying Rolling Stone in 1982 after an egregiously breathless editorial which opined that the band A Flock Of Seagulls were the future of rock 'n' roll. Not long after I commenced a guerrilla campaign against the magazine and its ownership which continues to this day. The high point of my initiative was the covert introduction of catering-strength chilli powder into Mr Jann Wenner's underpants immediately prior to the 2010 Emmy Awards whereat he was a nominee for an award. The camera dallied only briefly at Mr Wenner's table but even this short glimpse was enough to reveal the excruciating agony on his face as the fiery capsaicinoids interacted with his nobbies. Rolling Stone Founder Jann Wenner Ah, you say, but Jann Wenner no longer owns Rolling Stone, having sold it to media tycoon Mr Jay Penske. Me, bothered? Is it not enough that Wenner birthed the Frankenstein monster that tore the limbs from rock music, added wheels and turned the form into a hostess trolley designed to ferry around his progressive notions as if they were cucumber sandwiches and butterfly cakes at an old biddies' tea party? But, you cry, why has not the Stone's new owner Mr Jay Penske become the focus of your white-hot though entirely justified animus? Well, hasn't he, I counter, a sly smile playing about my lips. What of the recent incident when a wheel mysteriously came off little Jay's electric golf cart and caused a high-speed accident on the links which nearly wiped out not only Mr Penske but his tee partners Pres. B. Obama, Sec. M. Albright and Mr Jay Leno? The fight goes on.

Whenever I hear the words Rolling Stone I reach for my revolver. I'm not entirely surprised a magazine whose founder allegedly blocked The Monkees from the Hall of Fame and not once but twice stiffed Dr Hunter S Thompson turns out a list of songwriters with Bjorn and Benny at the bottom. No single publication has done as much to 'explain' - and in consequence suck the f**king life out of - popular music than that bloated, self-satisfied rag, begotten as it is of a lethal cocktail of filthy old hippies, pencil-necked pseudo-academics and unrepentant fans of Hootie and The Blowfish. With any luck, next time 'widely respected' Jann Wenner is visiting the Rolling Stone office his frankly colossal haemorrhoids will explode and blow the side off the building, killing everyone who works there in a cataclysm of fire and bloody havoc. Selah.

Me too.

At 01:30 04_07_20 Avg = 4.3 / 5 Excellent = 92% Bad = 8%

Done.

Me too. But the Strat looks wrong ... and sounds flabbily awful through the Cornell he's been using. It's like you're expecting a close shave with a cut-throat razor and the barber rubs a handful of lard over your face and says 'That'll be sixteen pounds, Sir. Anything for the weekend?'

No need to apologise, my dear chum. Press on. We need more Dury round here, not less.

Wilko's black Telecaster was pretty much his sole performing guitar from the early 70's until a few years ago when he supplemented it with a matching Strat.

You're channelling the late Mr Ian Dury again.

Kim to Free World: 'Want join band. Can shred like motherfücker, play all Johnny Cash'

Indeed so. The Great Plum Initiative of 1979 had entirely slipped my mind. I have shamed myself and will now withdraw from public life.

From now on, anytime someone says 'Yamaha' in my presence I shall say 'Scarface. Mark of the squealer'.

And back again: I put in the money and pull out a plum To the best of my recollection such vending machines as were to be found on LU stations in the late 1970's dispensed confectionery, not fresh fruit. Mr Weller strains our credulity to breaking point and beyond.

Well, they were ludicrously inexpensive, reasonably solid and a good platform for modding. My pal bought a Ryder Telecaster, easily as good as a cheap Squier that cost twice as much and eminently playable.

... as it is for so many of us

Just checked and my standard Shubb is just about good up to the 12th fret on a Strat (nearest to hand). The problem is fretboard radius - at 7.5 inches the strings 'splay' as the capo clamps onto the board and you have to jimmy them around by hand to get them straight again. A flatter board would be less of a problem. Then there's the issue of 12th fret intonation which necessitates re-tuning. So it can be done but it's a bugger. If one wants to play that high, buy a mandolin.

Some people experience difficulties in the early days but not usually for very long. Without wishing to appear to burnish my own credentials, I play bass and guitar, and swapping from one to the other no longer involves any thought or adjustment. You just put the one down and pick up the other one, different mindset, different motor skills. This is the case for many people. Logic suggests that going to 30" from 25" should be easier than going straight to 34" but, honestly, it doesn't seem to make much difference, especially if you play standing up. Short, medium, long scale: they're all good. The weird thing is how, over longer periods, alternating between bass and guitar bleeds back into how one approaches each instrument. I've just come off a couple of years of mostly guitar and my bass style has definitely changed as a result.